


Stagnant

by orphan_account



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Back to Middle-Earth Month, Caranthir is cranky, Caranthir is lonely, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 00:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14008068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Written for Back to Middle-earth Month 2018, for the March 5 prompt:Lost, what most I long for,And never to be found,Between the lake water and the sea waterI walk without sound.(Rosemary Dobson, “The Lost”)





	Stagnant

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Back to Middle-earth Month 2018, for the March 5 prompt: 
> 
> Lost, what most I long for,  
> And never to be found,  
> Between the lake water and the sea water  
> I walk without sound.  
> (Rosemary Dobson, “The Lost”)

Once upon a time a little boy named Morifinwë Carnistir hated the water. He hated bathing, hated swimming, hated fountains, hated its feel, its sound. He hated the flashes of sudden glancing light as it rippled. He hated the way he could touch it but not hold it. He hated the way it clung to him, hanging heavy on him if it got in his clothes and making him blunder awkwardly if he was forced into it. He hated the prickles as it left his skin. His father chastised him; his mother encouraged him. His brothers alternated between reasoning calmly with him and cruelly taunting him. His friends didn't care, because he had none: he was a Prince of the House of Finwë, and he was Too Good For This Nonsense.

As he grew up and grew smarter, he learned to appreciate the shimmer of fish just under the surface of a pond, the foreshortened unreality of his arm as he reached into a shallow pool for a dropped earring. He appreciated the way a long drink rolled cool and smooth down his throat when the air crackled with road dust in high summer. He could appreciate the satisfying torment of easing into the scald of a hot spring, and the enervating shock of rising again into the now-frigid air. His brothers barely noticed him, caught up in their small heartaches and triumphs. His cousins' love flowed around him but never into him, caressing them all but swirling away from his grasp. He didn't care, because he was a Prince of the House of Finwë and he could achieve everything he needed himself.

When he had grown older but no wiser he learned he hated the stench of the Sea.

Later years washed past unremarked upon as he waded through day-to-day affairs: the management of a fortress and the oversight of a realm, the approval of niggling requests and the denial of petty demands. A constant but necessary irritant. He let himself drift with the eddies of tediously perpetual negotiations for trade and land rights. His brothers, when they bothered with contact at all, had nothing new to say, but they still said it: the same non-news of the apparent quiescence of the Enemy and the same tiresome expectation of reports from the frontier. Administration. Busy work. When in the occasional space between obligations he stood on the edge of Lake Helevorn - His Lake - he couldn't quite get a true grasp of the fact that it had another shore, though he could visualize any number of maps. It was one thing forever. It made him nervous. He loathed time as it glided more lazily with each season, but he was a Prince of the House of Finwë. He would permit no one to see why he dived so determinedly into the minutiae of his little tidepool beyond the Gelion.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in a long time - concrit is welcome! I'm [mywoesaregranular](http://mywoesaregranular.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.


End file.
